60th Anniversary of the Incheon Landing

A re-creation of the 1950 Incheon landing to celebrate the operation`s 60th anniversary will take place Wednesday morning. The large-scale simulation will involve nine warships and 44 amphibious ships from South Korea, the U.S. and Australia with the participation of some 300 American and South Korean veterans of the war and active soldiers. The Republic of Korea would never have had free democracy or even existed without help from 261 aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers from eight countries such as the U.S., U.K., Australia and France and a 75,000-strong force including the 7th U.S. Division and South Korean Marines in the sea off Incheon.

Led by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the landing, which blocked the rear of the North Korean military, turned the tide of the Korean War at a time when South Korean forces retreated to the Nakdong River battle line. Given the worst possible landing conditions of strong currents and narrow waterways, the landing is considered one of the most successful operations in 20th-century warfare along with the Normandy landing in World War II.

The Incheon landing is significant because it saved the Republic of Korea. This is why South Koreans hold high respect and express thanks to MacArthur, who pushed for the operation. His statue looks down at the sea off Incheon at Incheon Freedom Park. Violent protests urging the statue’s removal in 2005 turned out to have been started by North Korea’s instruction as discovered in the prosecution of a co-representative of the (South) Korea Alliance for Progressive Movement.

In June this year, 26.2 percent of South Koreans said in a survey conducted by the (South) Korean Association of Party Studies, “The Incheon landing led to failed reunification and solidified national separation.” Moreover, it is shocking that many remain ignorant about the landing, with half of South Koreans saying it discouraged communization of the Republic of Korea and that they are attracted to leftist propaganda.

University of Chicago professor Bruce Cumings, who in 1981 encouraged pro-North Korea activists in South Korea with the false claim that the U.S. and South Korea were more responsible for the Korean War than North Korea in his book “The Origin of the Korean War,” has published a new book, “The Korean War: A History.” In his latest work, he said the Korean War was a “dirty war” that the U.S. had no reason to be in. The Washington Post blasted him by saying the author, whom South Korean leftists considered a hero in the 1980s, conveniently ignored data discovered after 1990. Still, a significant number of South Koreans agree with Cumings` opinions.

The Korean War was not a meaningless war but a “meaningful tragedy” that protected the free democracy of the Republic of Korea from the clutches of North Korea. Had the Incheon landing failed and Kim Il Sung unified the Korean Peninsula under communism, the South Korean people would have had no Republic of Korea government to criticize as unfair and no free democracy.